Minecraft for Xbox One due Friday for $19.99 or $4.99 if you own Xbox 360 version

Microsoft has just announced that the long awaited Xbox One version of the highly popular sandbox game Minecraft will be released via digital download on Friday for $19.99, but people who already own the Xbox 360 version can get the Xbox One port for just $4.99.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft has sold over 13 million copies since it launched for the console in May 2012. The Xbox One port, developed by 4J Studios, will likely be a big hit as well. Microsoft says:

"With worlds up to 36 times larger than on Xbox 360, now there's an even bigger canvas to create on. Transfer your favorite Xbox 360 worlds and content to the Xbox One Edition so you won't lose your creations. Join a community of 13-million-plus Minecraft fans on Xbox Live that are continually laying down imaginative creations. And, with the widest range of downloadable content on console, you'll never run out of new worlds to explore with four player split-screen on one console or up to eight players over Xbox Live."

If you prefer to get your games on an old fashioned disc via a retail store, the Xbox One version of Minecraft will be sold in that form sometime before the end of 2014. If you are an Xbox One owner are you excited about Minecraft appearing on the console this Friday?

LOL yay taught all those smug Sony fan boys a lesson! So many people have used the illogical argument "our system is better because we get mine craft first". Oh how I can't wait to remind them of their contents

About time Lego inc creates their own online brick building universe with all their copyrights and unique pieces and bury this Minecraft once and for all.... If only to stop the millions of mind numbingly crap videos on YouTube and so I don't ever have to hear Minecraft uttered again.... One can dream. Probably a great game for kids but too many adults and pedos have infiltrated it. Time for something new

Well, I'm 24 actually but what would be wrong if I was 43? I don't like playing games let alone online games but I don't understand why people stigmatize relatively old people for playing games. Most games have better art and storytelling values than an average movie. Do you also think old people shouldn't watch movies or TV? Games are an interactive way of entertainment that really can cater to every age demographic. People need to get over it and accept this fact.

Ok. Relax. I just don't like Minecraft and have seen bullying and such on it that's all. Seems your rather invested in it. I didn't give it that much thought. And I'm 84 years old and drift my wheelchair like a boss. Chill nightwatch ppl have the right to like and dislike anything they want. 930ftw

My boys are going to love this, but my wife may not want it. Right now our Xbox one is more of an entertainment device and our xbox360 upstairs in the loft can have Minecraft on it all the time without it tying up the family.

What? GTA V will have better textures, but the game itself will be the same. Minecraft will make its worlds 36 times larger, offering a greater area in which to play, plus it gets actual core gameplay updates, and you can import worlds from the 360.

I think that you have your statement compeltely backwards, because GTA is a reskin of a dumb game and Minecraft is an expansion and improvment of a dumb game.

They can't verify that you own gta 5 for 360 unless it is digitally based. And since people have the disc instead in some cases, they have no reasonable way to make it fair for everyone to get a discount. Minecraft on the other hand is a digital-only game, and therefore is a discount for everyone, vis a vis, fair. The only way they could do a gta5 upgrade is a promotion similar to the $10 upgrade they did for black flag, battlefield, etc when the One originally launched.

The issue is that you didn't pay it for Windows - you paid it for Windows, Mac and Linux. You didn't pay for it using a Microsoft account, you paid it using a Minecraft account. There is no way you can connect both minecraft and Microsoft Account purchase systems and check for purchases - that's something you have to complain about to Mojang.

The only way it might work where you pay once, use all systems, is if Mojang releases minecraft for free (which will be a 90 minute trial) and within the app, you can log in, to use the full version.

The game had to be ported from scratch to Xbox One. It's much more work than making a Windows 8 game run on Windows Phone. And the many new features and enhancements - all take time and effort. Porting it over and then not charging for it wouldn't be profitable, so devs just wouldn't do that. But $5 is a very fair price for the transfer and improvements.

Even then, not only is there no current way to hack the Xbox One whatsoever (I run in some, how should I put it...."informed" circles) but someone would have to write a mod specifically tailored to the Xbox One in a hacked state. So if this ever happens, it will probably be in the vicinity of 5-10 years.

Minecrafts biggest problem is Java. An optimized version coded in a better language with a more efficient compiler could work. But Mojang couldn't do it, they couldn't even make the console version and brought another company in for that.
In the meantime there are plenty of clones that put pocket edition to shame, and some of them are even on WP.

Jeb and Notch have actually commented on Minecraft for WP. I think they said the problem was the language or Java or something and that they would have to get new developers, but this was long before WP 8.1 was announced. Now that WP has grown, hopefully they can make it.